E3: Small

21072008

E3 has now passed, and seemed surprisingly uneventful even with vastly reduced numbers of people.

Probably the most interesting big announcement I saw out of it and haven’t blogged here yet is Sony’s PSN video rental service. It’s been rumoured (and obvious) for a while that Microsoft were likely to partner with Netflix to offer video through the 360, and this was announced, but SCE seem to have surprised everyone… even though they’re part of a huge media corporation with access to massive amounts of video content.

Pretty much all of the industry comment I’ve seen on E3 this year has been “I’m glad I’m not going”, and in the wake of the event, has become really quite savage. The newly relaunched EDGE Online has a couple of quotes:

“I hate E3 like this,” said EA CEO John Riccitiello. “Either we need to go back to the old E3, or we’ll have to have our own private events.”

Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America, was equally critical. “E3 this year is terrible. The world used to come to E3. Now it’s like a pipe-fitters show in the basement.”